We left Dénia and headed for Calpe. On the way we passed a huge number of cyclists on the road. It seems a lot of professional cycling teams use the area for winter training.
We'd phoned the Merced campsite a couple of days ago, and they said they don't take bookings, you just have to turn up. We got there just before 11am and fortunately there was a space just being vacated, so we got it. We paid 75 euros for 3 nights including electricity and Wi-Fi.
We went for a walk into town, first heading for the north beach.
The main feature on the coast is the giant rock on a peninsula above the port, called Peñón de Ifach. Back in 2020 when we were in the area, we had planned to climb up it, but the first day of lockdown for Covid happened when we came here, and it was barriered off.
We went to its visitor centre, and found out that even though entry numbers onto the rock are meant to be restricted, nobody was checking. So we took the risk and carried on up the path.
The views of Calpe got better the higher we went up.
At one point the path goes through a tunnel carved in the rock.
The path had been well-surfaced up to that point, but on the other side of the tunnel it got much more challenging. Shirley stopped and waited with Oscar while Scott went on a bit further to a viewpoint, but even he didn't go as far as the top.
We made our way back through the tunnel, down the path and over to the port.
We went slightly inland to a lagoon which has flamingos on it, though there were all quite far away on the other side.
We went back to the promenade and walked further south. The views back to the rock were spectacular.
Once we reached the end of the beach we went up into the old part of town. We came across an event in a square where music was playing and food and drink was being served, so we sat down for a drink. It was organised by the "Fraternity and Brotherhood of Holy Week".
After this we walked back to the campsite. Later for dinner we had pork chops with potatoes, flat beans and carrots.
